Monday, March 30, 2015

As profound as the disagreement is between Israel and the U.S. over the substance of the nuclear deal being negotiated with Iran, the two countries disagree just as fundamentally over the consequences of failing to complete such a deal.

In fact, this disagreement is central to the wildly divergent calculations being made by President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The heart of the dispute is simply this: If the talks fail to produce an agreement now, Israel believes the continued pressure of economic sanctions can compel Iran to agree to a much better deal later on. The Obama administration’s fear is that failure of the talks now could cause the collapse of the sanctions regime—and the end of any real pressure on the Iranians.

...A number of the pledges that the museum promoted, and banked on, during the peak fundraising years for the $300-million renovation have not fully materialized, a Globe and Mail investigation has found. Since then, Ontario taxpayers have assumed the debt the ROM initially owed to CIBC and filled a $23-million void left by these donors – all of whom were given substantial recognition for pledges that, a decade later, remain outstanding....

Sunday, March 29, 2015

We went from "risk becoming" to "are" about 20 years ago, but otherwise, some fine insight by Rex Murphy:

...Literally, you could multiply the instances of silly thinking and foolish actions by the hundredfold that now burden universities across the West, as the institutions that have carried the light of intellect from the earliest days of Athens, through the Renaissance, right to our present day, have surrendered to every passing fad and fancy of ever-more trivial and mentally bankrupt causes. Such as the Occupy the Syllabus farce at the University of California at Berkeley, which lamented the presence of such feeble intellects as Socrates, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke and Hegel in a course, they being that terrible triune of white, dead and male.

Cognitive Dissonance is the most obvious explanation for the behavior of people who refer to themselves as Christians or Jews and yet have made the destruction of Israel their primary mission in life.

"Overcoming Christian Zionism" in the
service of the Devil

There are a vast number of reasons in a wide variety of categories for supporting Israel other than theological validation based on Scripture. The foremost of them being that, despite claims by its enemies, Israel is a liberal, pluralistic, genuine democracy, and the only such one, in a region where totalitarianism, oppression, and brutality are the norm.

However, for those Christians and Jews who have made their religion a core part of their identity, and presumably, that would particularly apply to the clergy, there is a very basic and irrefutable reason for supporting Israel. Because all throughout the Bible, God says you should.

In fact, it's put substantially much more strongly than that. You don't have to be an expert theologian to get the straightforward reading of the Bible that, at its foundation, is the message from God to " support Israel... or else."

Yet there are people calling themselves priests, rabbis, and ministers who are wrapped up in their hate of Israel, and try to undermine the validity of the religions they profess to practice. Some of these strange characters, a combination of the vicious and misguided, are meeting in Vancouver next month.

Israel's enemies are depicted as the embodiment of evil and indeed, if you take the Bible at its word, Satan is numbered foremost among them.

If the Prince of Darkness were to have an online chat profile, his might read exactly like that of former Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, Ben Levin, the admitted child pornographer and pedophile: "there are no taboos."

One of the taboos from which Satan is obviously exempt is lying. In order to do his job properly, the Devil has no obligation to tell the truth. Nor is he obliged to not take advantage of people's stupidity.

Anti-Israel "churches" support those who
intentionally slaughter children

I am not inclined to ascribe human behavior to supernatural influence. But it's hard not to acknowledge there is a real thing such as evil when you see innocent people lined up on a beach, made to kneel, and then have their heads slowly sliced off by hooded maniacs claiming to act in the name of God.

Similarly, claiming to act in a "quest for justice," is the Vancouver conference of dimwitted clergy who are members of radical denominations aligned with supporters of people who intentionally slit the throats of innocent infants and with overt anti-Semites. Some Presbyterians, Anglicans, and United Church of Canada members have partnered with the "Palestinian Sabeel Center for Liberation Theology" which is closely linked with the terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In order to try to justify their antisemitism, they wave around a so-called Kairos Palestine document, a pseudo-theological declaration that was concocted by terror-supporters and is riddled with Jew-hate.

I have no religious dog in this fight. My support for Israel is based on secular morality, and not on the texts of any religion. If these people want to have a hate-fest against Jews and the concept of Jewish self-determination, that's their own business. But at the least they should recognize that the god they worship isn't the one in the Bible. If you believe that sort of thing, there's no way to avoid recognizing that they are worshipers of the god that the God of the Bible has cursed to Hell.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

An Iranian journalist writing about the nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran has defected. In an interview Amir Hossein Motaghi, has some harsh words for his native Iran. He also has a damning indictment of America's role in the nuclear negotiations.

Late
yesterday, Christine Elliott's campaign team released a statement claiming to
be “in the best position to win” after “analyzing" the PC Party of
Ontario’s full membership list, just 30 minutes after the list was released to
the campaigns.We
appreciate the Elliott campaign team’s decision to share the “findings” from
its “detailed”, though remarkably rapid, “analysis.” However, we have to wonder
when, if ever, they will allow the PC Party of Ontario to release their total
number of memberships sold. Patrick Brown has repeatedly called for the
Party to release his membership numbers. Recently, another candidate did
the same. Unfortunately, the Party is unable to do so. Only the
Elliott campaign stands in the way of transparency and truth; in fact, we
understand they went so far as to send a lawyer’s letter to PC Party
Headquarters to ensure the facts never come out. Elliott herself
confirmed the existence of the letter. One has to wonder why."There
is a pattern of behaviour here,” said Mark Towhey, Executive Director of the
Patrick Brown Leadership Campaign. “The team behind Ms. Elliott seems routinely
to struggle to discern fact from fiction, releasing first one set of numbers,
then another and ultimately refusing to allow facts to be released so members
can judge the truth for themselves.”

For
its part, the Brown campaign will stick with the facts. It has signed up
over 40,410 members – a number that, unlike the numbers of some campaigns —
hasn’t changed with the wind. This does not include the growing number of
pre-existing members who have grown tired of the Elliott campaign’s same old,
same old tricks and have pledged their support and their financial contributions
to Patrick Brown. “We’ve
got over 40,410 members signed up for Patrick,” said Robert Stanley, Campaign
Manager. “We know who they are and we know where they live. They’re
well-distributed among all 107 ridings in Ontario, including the North and the
GTA where we haven’t seen many Elliott supporters. In fact, we have a
very sizeable number of supporters in Whitby. And, of course, we’d
welcome more."76,736
- 40,410 - 10,000 = 26,326For
his part, Patrick Brown remains focused on the actual work of rebuilding a PC
Party of Ontario that has suffered greatly over the past decade under the same
old, same old leadership.“I’d
like to thank the Party staff for their hard work over the last four weeks as
they sorted through the vast amount of memberships,” said Patrick Brown,
speaking from Kingston, Ontario where he is on his third tour of the province
since beginning his leadership campaign. “I
am absolutely thrilled to see we’ve grown the PC Party of Ontario from 10,000
members before the leadership race began to 76,736 members today,” added Brown.
"I’d like to congratulate all four of the other candidates who,
together, have added up to 26,326 new memberships to the more than 40,410 my
own team brought in. That’s great work and great news for our Party.
We’re now more than three-quarters of the way to the goal I set for the Party
during the Sudbury debate in November.”

A group of researchers are getting closer to bringing the extinct woolly mammoth back to life. Geneticist George Church’s lab at Harvard University successfully copied genes from frozen woolly mammoths and pasted them into the genome of an Asian elephant.

Put forward by the NUS LGBT Committee, they believe the appropriation of black women by white gay men is prevalent within the LGBTI scene and community.

'This may be manifested in the emulation of the mannerisms, language (particularly AAVE- African American Vernacular English) and phrases that can be attributed to black women. White gay men may often assert that they are “strong black women” or have an “inner black woman”,' they said.

'White gay men are the dominant demographic within the LGBT community, and they benefit from both white privilege and male privilege.'

They claimed the appropriation is 'unacceptable and must be addressed'. Passing the motion, they agreed to eradicate the appropriation of black women by white gay men and to raise awareness of the issue.

A second motion passed was the banning of cross-dressing or drag as it could be offensive to trans women...

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

She was not a horrible person. But she was also not, as Monica Lewinsky claims, a victim of a phenomenon now known as cyberbullying. She was a victim of a backstabbing "friend" named Linda Tripp who betrayed confidences of the then 22-year old White House intern. She was the victim of a political vendetta by Republicans and a prosecutor named Ken Starr who made Les Miserables' obsessive, heartless policeman Jabert look like Andy Griffith's portrayal of the kindly sheriff of Mayberry. She was the victim of an older man who threw her to the wolves to try to save his political career and Democrats who were invested in that career. But primarily, Monica Lewinsky was the victim of her own colossal stupidity.

She was having an affair with a sitting, married President of the United States, and she was saving souvenir semen from him, and bragged about it. We all make mistakes, but even at 22, that was taking naivety to an astounding level.

I don't fault Lewinsky for going on a crusade to rehabilitate her reputation. It's a smart thing to do. But it doesn't mean I have to buy it. And in any case, who really cares anymore?

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier who was recovered in Afghanistan last spring after five years in captivity, has been charged with desertion and misbehaving before the enemy, Army officials said Wednesday, setting the stage for emotionally charged court proceeding in coming months.

The folks over at conservative Breitbart.com are a bit worked up over this video.

I don't see anything wrong with it being shown to college-age drama students because of the nudity, or the puking, or the golden showers, or the expelling of a little plastic toy from a vagina. Actually, those are the only things that make it remotely interesting.

OK, maybe it's idiotic and both figuratively and literally masturbatory, but at least it wasn't as boring as Waiting for Godot, or everything by Eugene Ionesco.

Monday, March 23, 2015

KATHERINE BYRON, a senior at Brown University and a member of its Sexual Assault Task Force, considers it her duty to make Brown a safe place for rape victims, free from anything that might prompt memories of trauma.

So when she heard last fall that a student group had organized a debate about campus sexual assault between Jessica Valenti, the founder of feministing.com, and Wendy McElroy, a libertarian, and that Ms. McElroy was likely to criticize the term “rape culture,” Ms. Byron was alarmed. “Bringing in a speaker like that could serve to invalidate people’s experiences,” she told me. It could be “damaging.”

Ms. Byron and some fellow task force members secured a meeting with administrators. Not long after, Brown’s president, Christina H. Paxson, announced that the university would hold a simultaneous, competing talk to provide “research and facts” about “the role of culture in sexual assault.” Meanwhile, student volunteers put up posters advertising that a “safe space” would be available for anyone who found the debate too upsetting.

The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma. Emma Hall, a junior, rape survivor and “sexual assault peer educator” who helped set up the room and worked in it during the debate, estimates that a couple of dozen people used it. At one point she went to the lecture hall — it was packed — but after a while, she had to return to the safe space. “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” Ms. Hall said...

It's not just Senate and Congressional Republicans who are upset with President Barack Obama's capitulation to Iran on a nuclear deal.

Congressional Democrats are warning the White House that only Congress can repeal the sanctions against Iran. In the event of a bad deal that the Obama administration seems intent on racing towards, it now appears that opponents of lifting sanctions against Iran have enough bipartisan support to override a presidential veto.

In other news, Obama's peace partner, Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, called for "Death to America" on Saturday, which is no doubt meant to reassure Secretary of State John Kerry of Iran's peaceful intentions regarding its nuclear program.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Tom Flanagan was a top political adviser and respected professor until he was the victim of his own words and a set-up by aboriginal activists.

His opinion that people who look at child pornography should not be put in jail is repugnant to many and something with which I disagree. But the context of that one sentence was taken all on its own in order to marginalize him. And it worked.

(Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain accused President Barack Obama of throwing a "temper tantrum" over comments by Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, adding to the conflict between the White House and the Republican-dominated Congress over Israel.

McCain, asked on CNN's "State of the Union" show if U.S.-Israel relations were at a dangerous point, said, "I think that's up to the president of the United States."

Obama's sensitive relationship with Netanyahu was strained further by comments Netanyahu made in the closing moments of his successful campaign for re-election last week.

CairoWhen then-Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi appointed a little-known general named Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to be his new defense minister in August 2012, rumors swirled that the officer was chosen for his sympathy with the teachings of Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood. One telltale sign, people said, was the zabiba on the general’s forehead—the darkened patch of skin that is the result of frequent and fervent prayer.

A pious Muslim must surely also be a political Islamist—or so Mr. Morsi apparently assumed. But the general would soon give the world a lesson in the difference between religious devotion and radicalism.

“There are misconceptions and misperceptions about the real Islam,” now-President Sisi tells me during a two-hour interview in his ornate, century-old presidential palace in Heliopolis. “Religion is guarded by its spirit, by its core, not by human beings. Human beings only take the core and deviate it to the right or left.”

Does he mean to say, I ask, that members of the Muslim Brotherhood are bad Muslims? “It’s the ideology, the ideas,” he replies.

“The real Islamic religion grants absolute freedom for the whole people to believe or not believe. Never does Islam dictate to kill others because they do not believe in Islam. Never does it dictate that [Muslims] have the right to dictate [their beliefs] to the whole world. Never does Islam say that only Muslims will go to paradise and others go to hell.”

Teaching Assistants are essentially glorified tutors, who are being paid to be students, while getting a coveted opportunity to build their resumes for a track they hope will someday lead to a professorship.

The real exploitation going on at universities is the way sessional staff are treated.

John Robson in National Post:

...The CBC also claimed sessionals teaching big survey courses “put in 60- to 70-hour weeks grading hundreds of essays and exams,” which is not true. My TAs work 130 hours per semester total, 10 hours a week per 13-week course, attending lectures, preparing, grading and seeing students, and as I split the grading with them I do roughly the same.

The problem isn’t how much sessionals do. It’s how little. Sessionals don’t get six courses a year; it would show up the professors. They’re lucky to get three. Meanwhile a full professor’s four courses a year averages out to 10 hours a week, a quarter of a real job, for pay and benefits out of reach of the typical taxpayer. Granted they also endure burdensome and largely pointless administrative duties. But they get ample time for research they presumably enjoy, of no necessary worth to the rest of us, including a sabbatical every seventh year...

See also: A remarkably idiotic editorial in the University of Toronto's newspaper, The Varsity, in which a MA student in Public Health claims that Teaching Assistants must be paid more to support their mental health. It's silly, but also a great study in the unrealistic worldview of the self-centred, self-entitled narcissism of a Canadian university student.

By his logic, McDonald's should be paying its burger-flippers six-figure salaries, but why should he have thought it through? It's not like universities teach or expect their students to do that anymore.

...As an employer, the university is responsible for improving the mental health of its students to create a safe and healthy environment. If the university is committed to improving mental health, then the negotiation with the TA union is an opportunity to transform the mental health challenges of students. The report by the Provostial Advisory Committee On Student Mental Health produced last year recommends programs for graduate students to create a greater sense of community. However, how can this sense of community be created when students spend their time struggling to make ends meet? Improving mental health at U of T requires interventions that transform the student experience. Reducing financial burdens on students is one of these interventions...

...The Iranian regime controls vast energy reserves, some key geopolitical chokepoints, an actual government, a nuclear program, a regular military, a lot of not-so-regular militias and armed groups, a large number of young people, and a proud civilization. The Islamic State controls some energy reserves, a few not-so-regular militias, a small number of young people, and a few parts of Syria and Iraq. One actor has vastly greater capabilities than the other actor. In other words, of course Iran is a bigger threat than the Islamic State to the United States and its interests in the region.

The second reaction is to ask what one should do with this observation. Contrary to recent rhetoric, it’s not as obvious as “end all cooperation with Iran.”

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

On Sunday night, Montreal’s Hillel Concordia abruptly cancelled a Monday talk by political activist Ryan Bellerose, founder of Calgary United with Israel (CUWI).

It would have been a pro-Israel talk, which nowadays, Jews being so passionately divided on Israel, made certain Hillel constituents volubly unhappy. A pretext for disinviting him was found in what were deemed unacceptably crude satirical tweets posted by Bellerose about Hamas terrorists, unremarkable in their context, on an #AskHamas thread. Conceived to market Hamas propaganda, the thread ended up being buried in an avalanche of vicious and often hilarious anti-Hamas ridicule (e.g., “#AskHamas. Dying to know how to kill Jews, gays, women, kids…?” by Anne Bayefsky).

But Hillel’s bad faith (in my opinion, weighing their explanation against credible other sources) is not the story today. Rather, let me introduce you to the remarkable Ryan Bellerose.

Ryan Bellerose is a Métis from Northern Alberta. He grew up living rough on a “rez,” speaking “michif” until he was five years old. His father is Mervin Bellerose, who co-authored the Métis Settlements Act of 1989, passed by the Alberta legislature in 1990, which cemented Métis land rights. Ryan’s own people’s indigenous rights — and indeed all human rights — are therefore a passion he comes by honestly...

Just after the Friday sermon and prayer ended, Mulcair was invited to speak to the Muslim congregation... (Mulcair) harshly criticized the Anti-Terrorism Bill (C-51), and accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Islamophobia and of intentionally targeting the Muslim community...In his speech, Mulcair said:

“For years, this mosque has played a vital role in Mississauga—promoting education and charity for all. And it’s been a leader in promoting unity—a lesson so important to the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him..."

One of the ads announcing Bonnie Crombie "honoring" the
Palestine House event

As it turns out, Bonnie Crombie's scheduled honoring of Palestine House also came as a surprise to Bonnie Crombie.

When contacted about her scheduled appearance at Palestine House's Land Day hatefest and how it reflects her position, Mayor Crombie's spokesman responded that she never confirmed to attend the event and will not attend it.

Shocking as it may be that supporters of terrorism might be telling lies to raise funds, perhaps their claim that a "number of members of the Parliament of Canada" will also be there to celebrate attacks on Israel will prove to be more accurate. However the names of those members of Parliament supposedly attending the Palestine House event are yet to be revealed.

Monday, March 16, 2015

My life started on the banks of the Boyne in County Meath. Navan is the name of the town; only me, Mom, Dad. Dad ran to the hills; never saw him 'til I was thirty-one. Mother looked after me and took off to London to be a nurse, to get out of the repression of Catholic-shaming and upbringing. She went to the new land to start a life for me, and consequently there was a separation there.

I was with my grandparents and then they died; one after the other, more or less, and then I was with an aunt, Aunt Rosie, and then I lived with her, but they were starting a family, and they couldn't look after me. And then I lived with Uncle Phil. And they were both starting families, so I finally lived with a wonderful lady called Eileen Reilly. She had a lodging house. I lived in a little room with the lodgers until I was about eleven.

So it's not really a surprise to learn that the bulk of the Bill C51 protesters turned out to be actual morons, led by the usual core group of professional protesters you'll find at all anti-federal government events:

The new proposed security Bill by the Conservative government has some areas of concern, particularly in areas of oversight for security agencies and vagueness about what could be considered terrorism. But there is no question that Islamist terrorists and terror-supporters have been using Canada as a base, and are becoming more sophisticated. Which means dealing with them requires new tools. Despite what the imbeciles who gathered at Toronto's Nathan Philips Square believed and were encouraged to believe by manipulative protest leaders, there's nothing criminalizing peaceful protest and dissent in the new Bill. Nor will growing garlic in your garden be made a criminal offence.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

The logical flaw in the indictment of a looming “very bad” nuclear deal with Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered before Congress this month was his claim that we could secure a “good deal” by calling Iran’s bluff and imposing tougher sanctions. The Iranian regime that Netanyahu described so vividly — violent, rapacious, devious and redolent with hatred for Israel and the United States — is bound to continue its quest for nuclear weapons by refusing any “good deal” or by cheating.

This gives force to the Obama administration’s taunting rejoinder: What is Netanyahu’s alternative? War? But the administration’s position also contains a glaring contradiction. National security adviser Susan Rice declared at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference before Netanyahu’s speech that “a bad deal is worse than no deal.” So if Iran will accept only a “bad deal,” what is President Obama’s alternative? War?

Obama’s stance implies that we have no choice but to accept Iran’s best offer — whatever is, to use Rice’s term, “achievable” — because the alternative is unthinkable.

But should it be? What if force is the only way to block Iran from gaining nuclear weapons? That, in fact, is probably the reality. Ideology is the raison d’etre of Iran’s regime, legitimating its rule and inspiring its leaders and their supporters. In this sense, it is akin to communist, fascist and Nazi regimes that set out to transform the world. Iran aims to carry its Islamic revolution across the Middle East and beyond. A nuclear arsenal, even if it is only brandished, would vastly enhance Iran’s power to achieve that goal.

The Toronto-based newspaper Arabic Meshwar reported (Issue 125, March 6, 2015 p. 20) that NDP leader Thomas Mulcair met (March 1) with representatives of the Arab community during his visit to the GTA.

Greg Renouf, of the blog GenuineWitty has waded in among the creeps at the anti-Bill C51 protest at Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square, so you can see what they're about and who they really are. He deserves our thanks for that

From the looks of things, the protest is the usual core group one would expect to oppose enhanced security legislation. The protesters include Islamofascists like Zafar Bangash, an admirer of the terror group Hezbollah, Occupy Movement lunatics, and the opportunists trying to advance their own causes through them, like union boss Sid Ryan, Green Party leader Elizabeth May, NDP MP Andrew Cash, and rabble.ca founder Judy Rebick.

Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau's eagerness to exploit divisions in Canadian society, and attack Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a 'fear-monger' for supporting a ban on the Islamic niqab face covering during citizenship ceremonies, has taken a few weird twists and turns.

Harper has been the target of accusations of "Islamophobia" for saying that the niqab "is rooted in a culture that is anti-women." The Liberals and NDP have been trying to distort Harper's comments on the niqab by extrapolating it to an insult to all Muslims. That even though most Muslim women shun the niqab, which is a remnant of tribal Arabia in the medieval era, and the wearing of the full face covering has been criticized by many liberal Muslims.

Making matters more interesting is the resurfacing of reports that the Liberal Party, in 2010 under Michael Ignatieff, supported a niqab ban for a wide variety of government services in Quebec. Justin Trudeau was a member of the Liberal caucus at that time, having already served two tears as MP for the Papineau riding in Quebec. There is no record of him having voiced any opposition to Mr. Ignatieff's support of the niqab ban at the time.

Although, what only a few days ago looked like an opportunity for the NDP and Liberals to gang up against the governing Conservatives has taken a sharp turn towards civil war within the opposition parties.

In the sparring in the preliminary rounds leading to the upcoming election, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair thought they had landed some blows on Stephen Harper with the niqab controversy. It's now looking like the cagey, experienced Prime Minister was just playing rope-a-dope with the two freshmen opposition leaders.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Forces loyal to Iran are threatening to break ISIS’s grip on the key Iraqi city of Tikrit. Officially, the American military isn’t helping these Shiite militias and Iranian advisers as they team up with Iraqi forces to hit the self-proclaimed Islamic State. But U.S. officials admit that American airstrikes are a major reason Iran’s proxies are advancing on Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown.

The U.S.-led air campaign has not only crippled ISIS’s ability to move freely. It’s also providing air cover for Iraqi troops and the Iranian forces fighting alongside of them. It is a perilous, yet unspoken, military alliance between the U.S. and its top regional foe that some said could lead to an ISIS defeat in the short term and ethnic cleansing of Sunni Iraqis in the long run.

“Like it or not, right now [the U.S. and Iran] are on the same side,” said Vali Nasr, dean of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and longtime Iranian expert.

U.S. officials have repeatedly stated their concerns about the sectarianism that could emerge even as the strategy now decisively helps one side, the Shiite, in the push to defeat ISIS.

But two U.S. officials concede that the effect of the airstrikes helps Shiite forces—while swearing that there is no strategy to help Iran.

Playing the Obama administration for suckers is a critical part of Iranian strategy. Something pretty much boasted about by a kooky Khomeinist named Zafar Bangash, who is the Mullahs' de facto spokesman in Canada, when he talked about how Iraq will soon join the Iranian "resistance front."

During a week that marks the fourth anniversary of the Syrian Uprising – that most pivotal of events during the most critical juncture of what we all heralded at the time as the Arab Spring – the passion for liberty that welled up in the breasts of millions of Arabs then is now being summoned from the stout patriotic hearts of Canadians. It’s because of that speech about liberty that Liberal leader Justin Trudeau delivered in Toronto on Monday. Liberty, if you don’t mind.

You have to admit it took some serious campaign-strategy cunning to ensure that the counterrevolutionary terror of Islamist barbarism that went on to immolate the Arabs’ dreams of liberty, even though it was the dark anti-subject of much of Trudeau’s meticulously constructed manifesto, was at the same time entirely unmentioned.

The word Islamism doesn’t appear once. The word terrorism appears only in the form “terrorist,” but only by way of mocking what some Conservative may or may not have insinuated in reference to the sympathies of not one, but two NDP leaders, and also in this construction: “Ultimately, my friends, the antidote to repression is liberty. It is this idea that will defeat terrorism and totalitarianism in the long run. It always has. The lethal enemies of terrorists and dictators are societies that are open, thriving and free – not just on paper, but in the streets.”

This is narcissism on methamphetamines. To flatter ourselves as being among the “lethal enemies of terrorists and dictators,” we would have to be prepared, as a country, to accept the sacrifices demanded by the duties of liberty and freedom, and to put our backs into it. These are things Justin Trudeau isn’t even prepared to talk about...

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

...this isn't some phony "separate but equal" plan to protect marriage from "the gays." Any Oklahoma statute that operates off of marital status or provides benefits or privileges based on marital status will accept either of these non-license certificates. The common law marriage option is for those who don't want to go the "formal ceremony" route. Note that they will get all the same rights and privileges under Oklahoma law.

But sorry, polygamists. The new form for marriage certificates in the bill still only has room for two people. Incestuous marriages would also remain verboten. The new form, though, does not indicate genders or use terms like "bride," "groom," "wife," or "husband." This means that, yes, this apparently conservative, religiously motivated legislation would legalize same-sex marriage recognition.

Given the historical inferiority complex that has characterized our relationship to our larger, more powerful neighbor to the south, any distinction from them in national policy is grasped upon by huge swaths of Canadians as if it were emblematic of membership in a higher caste.

So Canadian school children are taught that our multicultural society is "better" than America's Melting Pot. They're never sufficiently explained why it's better. It's just understood that multiculturalism is better because it's a prominent item on a very short list, along with Quebec, gun control and publicly-funded health care, that Canadians can say differentiates their culture from America's.

Now we live in a time when every Canadian under the age of fifty was conditioned to believe that multiculturalism is a type of supreme virtue that symbolizes our moral superiority over Americans.

But there is absolutely nothing superior to the vain belief in the morality of multiculturalism. In fact, multiculturalism is the cultural manifestation of moral relativism. It is essentially says all cultures are equal. Since cultures are rooted in ideas, then implicit in multiculturalism is the premise that all ideas must be of equal merit, and must be respected as such.

Which is nonsense.

Nonsense with a purpose. The father of Canadian multiculturalism was Pierre Trudeau, who in multiculturalism saw a way to diffuse Quebecois nationalism at at time when it threatened to rip the fabric of Canada apart. The prospect of Quebec separating from Canada was very real when Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister. People tend to have a hazy memory of the time leading up to Pierre Trudeau's years of leadership, when there were really only two cultures with any power and influence in Canada, the English and the French. Since the French were a minority who often felt powerless, even in their own province, independence had a much greater appeal then compared to now.

Prior to multiculturalism, Trudeau instituted bilingualism, requiring French to be used for official purposes throughout Canada. While that was official policy, in places outside Quebec where the Francophone population was tiny or nonexistent, bilingualism would have no practical effect.

Then Trudeau opened up the immigration floodgates, and instituted multiculturalism, by which immigrants from all over the world streamed into Canada and were encouraged to retain their cultural practices rather than to integrate. With that, rather than just an English-French divide, those two founding cultures would just be two of the larger threads in the vast Canadian tapestry.

In some ways multiculturalism was a success. Canada has always has immigration, and one of the ugly components of Canadian society prior to Trudeau was that the established classes collectively did their best to prevent integration of non-Anglo immigrants. So Jews were subject to quotas, Italian immigrants were often shunned to their own enclaves, Chinese immigrants were subject to a racist Head Tax, and so on. That type of discrimination affected not just first generation immigrants, but their children and grandchildren who were born in Canada.

Changes over the passage of time from multiculturalism's introduction in the early 1970's have brought about a sublime irony. It is the current generation of conservatives who encourage immigrants' efforts to integrate into established Canadian culture, whereas self-described "progressives" want to prevent such integration through multiculturalism.

Pierre Trudeau conceived of multiculturalism as a way of preserving a united Canada, Now that Pierre's intellectually inferior son Justin is leader of the Liberal party, modern-day multiculturalism is a scimitar being used to rip Canada apart.

Part of the hope of Pierre's version of multiculturalism was that immigrants would, if not adopt Canada's cultural practices, at least participate and share in its liberalism. That has been true for most, even among a new generation of immigrants from countries where Islam prevails, and who came to Canada to escape the repression and tyranny of their native lands.

However, a new phenomenon that has occurred since the Islamic revival whose modern beginnings can be traced in large measure to the Islamic revolution of the followers of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. While most Muslim immigrants want to become Canadians in its traditional sense of embracing Canadian liberalism, a significant Muslim minority has come to import the regressive and oppressive values the majority detest.

And despite the muddle-headed, partisan claims Justin Trudeau may try to make, rejection of Canadian liberalism is manifest in the misogynistic symbolism of the niqab, a tribal remnant of medieval Arabia that is the embodiment of treating woman as chattel. The niqab is a full face covering, allowing only eye-slits to see through, atop a tent like gown, that says, "I am the property of either my husband or father, and no man but they may lay eyes upon me."

Stephen Harper has been pushing back at the attack on Canadian values represented by the niqab. Seeing both a political chance to entice those to whom the niqab appeals, and in his way, trying to preserve the vestiges of his father's legacy, Justin Trudeau has, with the aid of his mainstream media acolytes, embarked on paradoxical course of confused logic.

Justin Trudeau is trying to sway people into thinking that championing a repressive symbol of misogyny is somehow striking a blow for liberty. In a speech Justin Trudeau gave earlier this week on "liberty," it becomes readily apparent that the Liberal leader has no idea that liberty is not the same thing as multiculturalism. Throughout his whole talk, he seemed unable to differentiate between the two.

More pertinent to Canadian interests, particularly with a federal election coming later this year, Trudeau gives no indication that he believes there is such a thing as Canadian culture beyond multiculturalism.

Free speech may not be ingrained in our laws the way it is in America's First Amendment, but that is part of our culture. So is seeing the person you are speaking with, and that has reasons that extend far beyond the fear of masks being used as criminal disguises. The literature of Dickens, the philosophical principles of Greek democracy, which continue as a line through Rome and Westminster are part of Canada's cultural inheritance. And yes, even the imperialist, colonialist artistry of Rudyard Kipling is part of Canada's historical legacy we inherited from Britain,

Which is not to say there isn't room for growth. Canada has been enriched with contributions from immigrants of Chinese, Greek, Indian, Korean,Jewish, Italian, Irish and other cultures from around the world. Aspects of their cultures have been mixed in with out own to make something even better. Sort of like a melting pot that is making a delicious melange of flavors of which the combined whole is tastier than the individual ingredients.

However, one thing any chef wants to keep out of his recipe is poison, since it will destroy anything it touches. Just as Islamist extremism has led some to commit acts of terror, and many others to be filled with hate towards those those who do not share their religion, the repressive ideology that the niqab represents is toxic.

In Justin Trudeau, the Liberals have a leader incapable of distinguishing between what is poisonous and what is healthy. It would be devastating for Canada if the majority of its voters lack that same ability to differentiate in the upcoming election.